The Last Airbenders
by Lady Helena Styvhals
Summary: Simple question: What if Aang hadn't been the only Airbender in that iceberg? What if an older, more experienced Airbender had been tagging along for the ride? What if Aang had an older sister finger during their adventures? How would the story play out then? How would everyone react to this nurturing figure? How would Zuko react? AU. ZukoxOC.


**A/N: ****I'm just gonna put this out there.**

**For those that are already familiar with how I tend to write my fanfictions, they know that when I dedicate myself to writing something, I go all in. I don't write simple one-shots or essentially-the-same-story-but-the-main-character-is-now-a-different-gender. No, when I write a fanfic, I rewrite the heck out of it.**

**I re-imagine scenes, I do gender-bend a lot but I only do that if I feel I can get away with it, which happens a lot, I re-imagine the world, I add what I felt was missing information, I basically take something and turn it into a completely different story to suit my own creative needs.**

**In this case, I essentially added an additional character and I plan on changing up a few scenes because if you've really studied my style of writing you'll know that I'm not all that in for humor for humors sake, and if you really think about it… Whilst Avatar is something of a storytelling masterpiece, it isn't perfect, and my own preferences do clash with it on some occasions, one of my biggest pet-peeves being that the romance aspect of the show leaves a LOT to be desired. What little romance there was in the show outside of Sokka's relationships either felt rushed or not particularly fleshed out in the long run.**

**To put it simply, I felt the romance to be lacking.**

**I'm gonna put this out there right here and now, I am not a fan of Zuko and Mei as a couple, I just don't buy it, it never hit home with me that the two of them would be able to function in a long relationship. I bought that Mei was in love with Zuko, but I never particularly liked the two of them cuddling up to one another acting lovey-dovey, it just always felt off whenever I saw it.**

**Anyway… I think that's most of what I wanted to put out at this very moment, I'm sure other things will pop up as I am writing. I am using transcripts of the episodes to help me out in writing this, just so you know.**

**And… I guess that's it.**

**Please enjoy.**

**Helena.**

* * *

**Prologue**

Water… Earth… Fire… Air…

My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Only the Avatar mastered all four elements. Only he could stop the ruthless firebenders. But when the world needed him most, he vanished.

A hundred years have passed and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. Four years ago, my father and the men of my tribe journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Fire Nation, leaving me and my brother to look after our tribe.

Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads and the cycle is broken, but I haven't lost hope. I still believe that somehow the Avatar will return to save the world.

* * *

**Book 1: Water**

**Chapter 1: The Two In The Iceberg**

_**Act I**_

For as long as Katara could remember, her village had been struggling.

With no waterbending to help with fishing and hunting since the last waterbender had been taken over sixty years prior, food had been something of a scarce resource as everyone had to do everything by hand. They had to build their villages by hand too, which made the process a slow one. An even slower one what with the Fire Nation raid that took place years before.

A raid that obliterated most of their buildings and left their village in melted ruins along with their injured and dead.

And now, what with the men went to the war, the only people they have on the South pole are elderly, women, teenagers, and children.

Katara herself had just turned fourteen, but she'd never been allowed to properly be a kid.

At the moment though, that last the least on her mind as she was bobbing at the back of a canoe with her sixteen-year-old brother in front of her with a spear raised above his head, tip pointed towards the surface of the cold water beneath them, leaving the canoe to slowly drift through the towering icebergs surrounding them.

It was still early, just after morning really but Sokka had been adamant about the two of them going fishing as soon as possible.

If one were to look at the two of them, it would be obvious they were siblings. The same dark-colored skin with even darker brown hair and the exact same shade of blue for their eyes, other similarities could be found in the shape of their jaw and nose. Being two years older, Sokka was taller than Katara with a thin yet athletic shape hidden beneath his clothes, Katara had just begun to fill out as a woman. They had both heard from the people of their village that they were considered very attractive young people, but that wasn't really something they thought about.

They had other things on their minds.

Katara watched the fish swim by just beneath the surface.

"It's not getting away from me this time," Sokka whispered, his eyes narrowing in concentration as he followed the fish with his gaze. "Watch and learn, Katara." he threw a glance over his shoulder at his sister cockily before turning back to the water. "This is how you catch a fish."

Rolling her eyes at her brother's words, Katara turned around in the canoe, leaning over the edge as she spied a fish swimming not too far away from where they were drifting.

Hesitantly, mindful of the biting cold in the air, Katara slowly worked the polar-sheep glove off her left hand, flexing her fingers for a moment as she cautiously shifted her gaze to their surroundings before she took in a deep breath, closing her eyes for a brief moment. Opening her eyes, she gritted her teeth in concentration, a look of trepidation passing over her face as she locked eyes on the fish still swimming someways away from them.

Slowly, she moved her exposed hand our over the surface of the water, immediately feeling the strange familiar pull below her navel, ripples that weren't from the fish forming in time with her cautious movement.

Okay… okay, that was progress at least.

Letting out a long breath, feeling a bit more confident than before, Katara slowly changed the movement of her hand.

A globe of water rose from the surface in time with her movement, a globe containing her target.

A soft, exhilarated giggle burst from her lips at the sight.

"Sokka, look!" she giggled, momentarily allowing herself to wallow in her childlike victorious glee as she continuously kept up the flowing movements of her arms, maintaining eye contact with the obviously frightened fish in the watery bubble.

Her brother waved off her words.

He hushed her.

"Katara, you're gonna scare it away," he whispered over his shoulder. "Mmm..." he licked his lips dreamily, still staring at his own target with his spear raised. "I can already smell it cookin'!"

Katara could feel her already frail connection to the water blob straining.

"But Sokka!" she called, trying to maintain control over the bubble, her arms already growing tired from the awkward movements coupled by the heavy wool, fur-skin-lined parka she was wearing. "I caught one!"

She struggled to guide the blob through the air towards the bone urn at the center of the canoe, momentarily veering slightly off course, towards her brother.

Apparently, Sokka finally decided that it was time to strike at his own target, raising his arm to try and position the spear just right.

The back of the spear collided with the water blob.

The blob burst, immediately drenching the sixteen-year-old boy.

"Hey!" Katara exclaimed, her arms lowering as her eyes followed the freed fish with dismay on her face as it happily fell back into the water, quickly swimming away from the siblings.

Sokka groaned as he felt the water already freezing on the blue wool of his parka and in the short ponytail tied high at the back of his head. He quickly shook off what little water had yet to freeze as he angrily turned around to face his sister.

"Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?" He asked, giving his gloved hands a firm shake, droplets of water spraying from the motion.

Katara sighed in exasperation.

"It's not magic. It's waterbending." she reprimanded her brother, putting her hands on her hips. "And it's-"

Sokka cut her off.

"Yeah, yeah," the sixteen-year-old waved a hand in the air, throwing cautious looks towards their surroundings. "An ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah." he turned back around towards the front of the canoe, brushing his gloved hand through his ponytail to rid his hair of the ice. He threw a glance at his sister over his shoulder. "You know you're not supposed to do that in the open."

Katara let out a long sigh, forcing herself not to squirm where she was sitting so as to not topple the canoe.

"I know..." she breathed into the silence that formed between them. "But how am I supposed to get better if I don't even get to practice?" her hands landed hard on the board she was sitting on.

It was silent for a long moment before Sokka finally broke, furiously scratching at the bald patched of hair on either side of his head, groaning loudly in frustration before fully turning around towards his sister, the canoe rocking furiously as he did.

Blue met identical blue.

"Look..." Sokka sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not asking you to quit practicing all-together..." he dropped his hands into his lap, giving his sister a hard look. "I'm asking you to be more careful in picking when you practice."

"I did look before I did anything." Katara retorted, though her words lacked any real bite to them, her gaze drifting away from her brothers.

Sokka nodded in approval.

"Good."

A sudden jolt of the canoe brought the siblings attention back to just where they had been drifting. Sokka turned around as quickly as he could without toppling them as he grabbed the oar, staring out at their surroundings in a near panic.

They were caught in a strong current leading them straight towards an area packed with ice formations.

The siblings weren't nearly skilled enough to maneuver something like that!

Didn't mean they weren't going to try.

Oar already in hand, Sokka furiously attempted to steer through the ice, pushing at the blocks that came too close for comfort as Katara screamed directions from behind him whilst pulling on her remaining glove. Directions that probably seemed more obvious to her than they did to her brother but she hadn't been out on the sea as many times as he did.

"Watch out!"

"Go left!"

"GO LEFT!"

Easy for her to say, she wasn't the one actually trying to steer them. The current had long since gotten way too strong for any kind of steering to be possible in their tiny boat. All around them, the icebergs were colliding with one another, reeling towards them.

Somehow, they managed to avoid collision on several occasions, but the likelihood of their luck on that front was visibly dwindling with each passing second, so really, when the siblings realized that their boat was about to be crushed between two lower icebergs, they really had no other choice but to jump onto one of them, barely having enough time to grab what little packing they'd brought along with them and the urn before really, there was no canoe anymore.

The iceberg they were on crashed into the other sending it floating off in another direction before it finally drifted to a stop.

Breathing heavily, Katara turned to her brother.

"You call that left?

"You don't like my steering?" Sokka panted right back at her, adjusting his hold on his bag, making sure everything was still in there, tightening the straps on the thick emergency blanket fastened to the bottom of the bag. "Maybe next time you steer and I shout distracting commands at your back?" he turned his back to his sister, hefting the bag onto his back.

Still running high on adrenaline, Katara shoved the urn into her brother's arms with more force than absolutely necessary.

"So it's my fault?" she asked, standing up, a large iceberg towering behind her.

Sokka sighed, this was a thing with Katara, she had always had a tendency to let her temper get the better of her, as of late, especially during times of stress or, to be more accurate, the wind-down period just after a moment of high stress or other emotions. No matter how grown-up his sister may act or even feel like she is, she's still just fourteen years old, her hormones were all over the place with no real outlet for them or someone she's truly comfortable talking about… those things with apart from their grandmother.

Well… to say that Sokka's own hormones weren't all over the place would be a lie, but he had had two more years in getting used to them than she had, had more experience in reigning them in during times where a temper really wouldn't help them.

Like now.

"I should have left you at home..." Sokka muttered, leaning on the urn as he glanced at their surroundings, trying to figure out just how the two of them were supposed to make it back to the village without a canoe. "Leave it to a girl to screw things up..." he still had the oar from the canoe at his side… would they be able to row a smaller iceberg back to the village? Were there enough icebergs around that they could make it back to the mainland by jumping from one to another? What were the possibilities of another village being out fishing that day?

Katara's eye twitched, her anger finally boiling over at her brother's careless statement.

"You are the most sexist, immature, nut brained..." she swung her arms around wildly, not paying any attention to the sudden violent rocking of the iceberg she was standing on or even the tug below her navel as the water around them responded to her movements. The iceberg behind her cracked as a violent wave crashed into it. "I'm embarrassed to be related to you!"

Sokka didn't even react to her words, he'd heard all of it before.

Should he try to jump to that iceberg over there? No… it's too far away… How much rope did he bring again? He could fashion a makeshift grappling hook with his boomerang and pull their smaller iceberg towards one of the bigger ones he could see floating not too far away from them… yeah… that sounded like a plan.

"Ever since Mom died, I've been doing all the work around the village while you've been off playing soldier!" Katara kept screaming at her brothers back.

Sighing, Sokka turned back around towards his sister, intending on trying to calm her back down so he could get them out of there. Only when he finally faced her, his eyes caught sight of one of his sister's waves hitting the iceberg behind her, a large crack forming in the formation. His words died in his throat at the sight.

"Uh..." he cleared his throat, raising a hand to point behind the raging girl." "Katara?"

"I even wash all the clothes!" Katara powered right through. "Have you ever smelled your dirty socks?" She jabbed a finger in her brother's chest, apparently not registering that he wasn't even looking at her. "Let me tell you, NOT PLEASANT!" She threw both her arms out along her sides, sending even more violent waves towards the iceberg.

"Katara!" Sokka grabbed her wrists, still glancing at the iceberg all the while trying to meet his sister's eyes. "Settle down!"

"No!" Katara yanked her arms out of his grip, shoving her brother away from her. "That's it. I'm done helping you. From now on, you're on your own!"

One last wave and that was it.

The iceberg completely split open behind her. Disintegrating, the largest pieces of ice falling into the water close to the iceberg they were standing on, pushing it away with several violent waves that would have sent them flying off of it had Sokka not acted so quickly.

He threw himself onto his sister, shoving her flat down onto the ice, keeping a protective arm over her head as pieces of ice-shards flew over their covering figures.

Finally, the waters calmed down enough for them to feel safe.

"Okay," Sokka said, allowing himself to lift his head. "You've gone from weird to freakish, Katara." he removed his arm, allowing his sister to stare at where the iceberg had previously been with awe in those bright blue eyes he shared with her.

"You mean I did that?" she asked, voice filled with wonder.

"Yup." Sokka nodded, tilting his head towards Katara's. "Congratulations."

Katara knew her brother an annoyed look and probably would have started by a sudden bright blue-ish white light in the water right in front of their iceberg-raft floated. At first, the light was rather dim, but soon it quickly grew in both size and intensity. The water level was rapidly rising, the siblings scrambling away from the edge of their make-shift raft as a new, lighter colored and spherical iceberg broke through the surface, again pushing the iceberg they were on away.

The two siblings stared at the iceberg in shock, Katara shakily getting to her feet, wobbling close to the edge of their iceberg to get a closer look.

And there she saw them…

Figures.

Deep inside the almost perfect spherical shape, there were three figures. One large blob that Katara supposed could be the remains of some kind of unknown animal, but the other two shapes… those shapes were most definitely human-looking.

One shape looking as though it was just floating in the water and had been frozen there.

The other shape, however…

The other shape was the smallest one, looking as though he'd been eternally locked in a meditation position. What struck the siblings, however, were the strange glowing markings along the distinct little-boy shape's hands and bald head.

It looked to be swirls and symbols forming intricately detailed arrows.

"Man..." Sokka breathed from behind Katara, slowly stepping up to the edge. "That is one sick way to go..."

Katara could only nod in agreement.

She couldn't possibly imagine what it would have been like to die in ice-cold water like that.

The boy's eyes flew open, a pair of glowing blue-ish whites staring at the siblings through the ice.

They recoiled.

"He's alive!" Katara exclaimed in disbelief, staring wide-eyed at the hazy figure. "We have to help." with that said, Katara grabbed the cutter made of bone from where it had been strapped to her brother's back, pulling down the hood of her parka as she took off towards the sphere, jumping from one sheet of ice to the other with trained ease.

"Katara! Get back here!" Sokka called after her, grabbing his spear as he readjusted the straps of the bag from where it had gotten jostled when Katara yanked the weapon away from him. He made sure to grab the other discarded items, knowing not to leave them on a free-floating iceberg, before quickly rushing after his sister, jumping with equally as much ease as her, if not more so. "We don't know what that thing is!"

Katara ignored him, skipping those final few icebergs before she found herself standing just in front of where the glowing boy was. If she hadn't been on a mission, she probably would have been unnerved at how those glowing eyes seemed to be following her every little movement.

Without hesitation, she hefted her borrowed weapon and swung at the sphere with as much power as she could manage, again, and again, and again.

Finally, after a few more wacks, the ice broke open.

A strong gust of air burst from the crack, knocking the weapon from Katara's hands.

The crack quickly spread up the structure before the top exploded, sending up a huge beacon of the brightest light the siblings had ever witnessed straight into the heavens, what remained of the sphere crumbling inwards around it.

* * *

A large metal ship plowed through the ice-covered water with little-to-no resistance, it's large chimney pumping out large black smoke clouds. On the front deck, a young man in his late teens shot to his feet, golden eyes staring wide-eyed at the pillar of light suddenly cutting through the otherwise bleak, icy environment.

The young man was handsome, with pale skin and a well-trained physique, the majority of his head clean-shaven apart from a four-point diamond shape at the back of his skull supporting the lone yet surprisingly thick ponytail held together tightly by a long red ribbon. Surprisingly, his looks were not at all marred by the large burn scar covering almost half of the left side of his face, not even sparing his ear, the area around his eye redder than the rest.

The young man was dressed in thick padded leather robes that had probably been a bright red once upon a time but had since faded, held together by a thick sash around his waist, it had a fur-lined hood but he did not bother pulling it up despite the cold.

He narrowed his eyes as the light began to dim just the tiniest bit.

"Finally..." he breathed, quickly turning on his heel to address the older man sitting at a table not too far away from him. "Uncle, do you realize what this means?"

The man looked to be in his late forties, early fifties, and yet all of his long hair had long since turned gray, his hairline has receded to the point of leaving the crown of his head bare. Like his nephew, he wore a thick robe with a sash wrapped around his notably large belly, a cup of tea steaming at his elbow on the low table.

"I won't get to finish my game?" the old man almost whined, looking up from the wooden tiles in his naked hands.

The young man spun back around towards the direction of the light.

"It means my search – is about to come to an end." the conviction in his voice, the determination in his gaze, it was overwhelming.

The uncle groaned.

The young man did not react well to that. He spun around to the old man, pointing towards the now fading pillar of light.

"That light came from an incredibly powerful source." he spins back around again as if wanting to commit the direction to memory, his naked hands clenching to fists at his sides. "It has to be him!"

"Or it's just the celestial lights." The old man gestured through the air above him, a tile pinched in his fingers. He turned back to the table. "We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don't want you to get too excited over nothing." he laid out one of the tiles as his nephew scoffed at his words. "Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?" he gestured at the teapot next to him.

Zuko's eyelid twitched, exploding in anger.

"I don't need any calming tea!" he screamed, spinning around yet again. "I need to capture the Avatar!" Turning his attention upwards at the command cabin at the top of the chimney, Zuko shouted up at it. "Helmsman! Head a course for the light!"

The old man looked at his nephew for a long moment before letting out a long exhausted sigh setting down yet another tile. He allowed his hand to linger on the wood as a cool wind rattled the tiles.

* * *

The beam slowly dissipates, allowing Sokka to move from where he'd been shielding his sister. The two of them looked up to see some residual blue light still swirling around the top of what was left of the iceberg. They watched as a young boy dressed in flimsy clothes in orange, yellow and light brown, the markings on his hands and head, along with his eyes, glowing, floated up from behind the ice wall left behind by the sphere, staring down at them in eerie silence.

He didn't look to be older than twelve, with pale skin and a lithe build.

Sokka raised his spear up towards the boy.

"Stop!" he ordered, his voice surprisingly steady, his eyes narrowed.

The boy just keeps standing there for a moment, the glow and residual energy fading from his body. His eyes became normal if exhausted, the markings now revealed to be tattoos light blue in color being very real and not some effect of the glow. The second the glow completely faded, it was like the boy slumped like a marionette that got its strings cut.

Having had little foothold, to begin with, the boy slid down the ice straight towards the siblings.

Gasping, Katara pulled herself away from her brother, sprinting to the falling boy to catch his small body in her parka covered arms.

Carefully, she adjusted how the boy was lying, turning him over onto his back, worrying over how thin his clothes were compared to the cold air. He wouldn't be able to last very long if they didn't get him into some warmer clothes soon.

The blunt end of Sokka's spear entered Katara's line of sight, poking at the boy's head.

She pushed her brother away.

"Stop it!"

At the sound of her loud voice, the boy groans, his head shaking from side-to-side slowly as he fought to open his eyes. Katara felt momentarily guilty for waking the boy but quickly shook off that thought. It wasn't safe for him to remain passed-out in the cold.

The boy's eyelids lowered back into an exhausted expression shifting slightly in Katara's arms, already shivering from the cold.

"I need to ask you something." his voice was barely louder than a whisper.

"What?" Katara found herself asking, leaning even closer to the boy's pale face, trying to shield him from the cold air, if only for a little bit.

"Please… come closer." the boy whispered, despite her being quite close already.

Despite this, Katara lowered herself even further, her hair-loopies hanging just inches away from the boy's face, her big blue eyes blinking down at him in worried curiosity. She adjusted her gloved hand behind the boy's neck.

For a moment, the boy just blinked up at her tiredly before something suddenly switched. His expression morphing from that on par with an exhausted old man on the brink of falling asleep to that of a wide-eyed excited little kid with a voice to match when his next set of words came out in a rapid almost tongue-trippingly fast slew of syllables despite the hacking of his teeth.

"W-will you go p-penguin sledding with me?"

Taken aback, Katara pulled away from where she'd been hovering over the boy, her eyebrow raising as she sat down on her knees, her hands awkwardly hovering in the air as she stared down at the boy staring back up at her in anticipation despite the violent shivers raking his lithe frame.

"Uh..." Katara could practically feel her brothers own confusion over this entire situation from where he was standing just feet away from her. "Sure. I guess." she finally answered after a moment of hesitation.

The boy floated.

He actually floated! His small body lifting off the ice, his thin clothes fluttering lightly for but a minute before he softly settled down on his feet, ignoring Sokka's not-so-silent freak out at what he's just done. Despite shivering in what Katara could now see to be light brown tight-fitting pants and undershirt with a yellow kind of u-shaped skirt thing hanging from the brown sash at his waist and the longer sides of the fabric fastened under his knees, an orange kind of… poncho? With a high stiffened yellow collar with the edges fastened to his elbows over a yellow pull-over shift of some style Katara could not recognize. The boy looked around at his surroundings in clear confusion, scratching at the back of his head.

All in all, the clothes he wore were not clothes for someone intending to visit the South Pole.

In fact… Katara couldn't recall haven even had clothes like those described to her from the few of her tribe that had the privilege of being away from the pole on some occasion.

"W-what's going on here?" the boy asked, rubbing at his arms in an attempt to warm himself up.

"You tell us!" Sokka exclaimed angrily, finally finding his voice as he stalked over to the boy. "How did you get in the ice!?" he started pocking at the kid's midsection with the blunt end of his spear. "And why aren't you frozen?

The boy simply batted the spear away, turning to the slope he'd slid down moments before.

"I-I'm n-not sure." the boy replied, confusion clear in his voice.

Suddenly, a loud, deep, animal-like noise echoes over the open waters, making the water tribe siblings cry out in alarm, stumbling into each other's arms, suddenly terrified the probability of what could have possibly made that sound.

The boy, however, gasped.

Eyes positively glittering, he spun around on his heel and started frantically climbing the slope to the top of the ruined iceberg.

The siblings watched the boy jump to the other side of the slope, letting out a loud, elated cry:

"APPA!"

The siblings glanced at one another before they started to carefully study the iceberg they were on, trying to find a way around without having to actually climb the slope as the boy had done. Katara, in particular, did not have the athletic ability for something like that.

"Are you alright?" the boy's slightly worried voice traveled through the air just as Sokka tapped his sister on the shoulder, pointing towards a thin ledge just on the left of where they were standing. They carefully gathered their things and started carefully walking around the ice formation, Katara's mind reeling in a mix of confusion and wonder.

Just what had they stumbled on to?

"Wake up, buddy."

"Aren't y-you freezing?" the siblings almost fell off the edge.

That was a new voice.

A distinctly female, albeit exhausted voice.

"Y-yeah..." the boy answered, sounding somewhat sheepish before he suddenly started letting out sounds as though he was trying to push something that was way too heavy for him. "Y-you have a-any s-spare winter g-gear?" a few more grunting noises. "I didn't t-think to b-bring mine."

The female voice scoffed fondly at the boy's response.

"Seriously, y-you are way to i-irresponsible sometimes." there was a sound like someone rifling through a bag joined in with the boy's continued pushing noises. "You'd be d-dead without me I-I swear."

Finally, the two siblings rounded a corner to find themselves standing on the edge of a shallow crater filled with what looked like soft, powdery snow, and in the center of the crater, where the boy pushed at its massive snout, stood a HUGE creature with six legs, a pair of horns sticking out of its round head and long soft-looking cream-colored fur, apart from the brown-colored arrow running down its back, stopping to point right between its eyes.

Sokka's jaw was almost touching the ground.

Another thing they noticed, the creature was carrying some kind of saddle, a large one, most likely capable of carrying at least twenty people if you arranged them carefully enough. And in the saddle was a figure.

A figure that had just draped what looked like a thick bright red cloak around their shoulders over what looked like a thick orange hooded robe.

That must be the source of that other voice they'd heard.

They'd barely been standing there for a few seconds before the creature opened it's mouth to reveal a positively massive bite, only to stick out its giant tongue to lick along the back of the boy trying to wake it.

The boy let out an ecstatic laugh.

"You're okay!" the boy exclaimed in happiness, falling off the creatures tongue to lovingly hug its neck.

And it looked like the creature was hugging back.

Well, at least in spirit if the contently closed eyes were anything to go by.

Sokka finally shook the shock off.

"What is that thing?" he demanded, storming over to the creature, spear at the ready.

The figure in the saddle stilled at the sound of his voice, turning away from the bags they had been rifling through to look at the water tribe siblings as they got closer to the creature, allowing the siblings a first look at their face.

Sure enough, it was a girl.

A girl a few years older than the boy from the look of it, with a sweet rounded face sporting large gray eyes similar to those of the boy's, a cute button nose and a pair of plump lips that looked to be just the piniest bit thinner than Katara's own, though Katara did allow herself one vain note that her own mouth looked to be wider than the girl in the saddle's. She wasn't low enough to not admit that the other girl had a much more innocent kind of beauty to her than Katara did. The girl blinked long eyelashes at them in obvious confusion.

She mustn't have heard them when they'd talked to the boy earlier.

"This is Appa, my flying bison." the boy calmly answered Sokka's frantic question.

Did he say flying?

He couldn't have just said 'flying', could he?

Apparently, Sokka had the exact same thought as her.

"Right." He deadpanned, tearing his eyes away from the girl still blinking down at them before gesturing towards Katara, a bored look on his face. "And this Katara, my flying sister."

She whacked him at the back of the head for that comment.

Katara threw her brother a glare from the corner of her eye.

The boy opened his mouth to speak but was distracted when his animal friend suddenly opened it's large mouth, inhaling deeply over and over again in a very familiar fashion. Eyes widening, the boy took a few steps away from the creature, the girl in the saddle hurriedly closing the bags she was surrounded by, her arms tightly wrapped around a deep red fabric similar to the one she was wearing, ducking down to lay flat against the saddle.

The boy ducked, his hands over hid head just as the large creature released a loud sneeze, a large blob of green shooting out of its nose and flying straight towards the Water-tribe siblings. By the time the boy had risen from his crouch and the figure in the saddle had righted the bags she was surrounded by, Sokka was already standing in absolute shock, covered by a bright green substance that he quite frankly did not want to name.

"Ewww!" Sokka screams frantically, furiously trying to get rid of the bright green substance by rolling and rubbing himself against the snow-covered ground.

The boy decided to take pity on the teenager.

"Don't worry, it'll wash out," he commented gently, patting the side of Appa's head.

If the irritated "Ugh!" was anything to go by, the comment was not exactly appreciated, so the young boy decided to change the subject.

"So, do you guys live around here?"

Katara moved to answer, only to have her brother running in front of her, holding a hand up.

"Don't answer that!" he exclaimed, his tone serious. "Did you see that crazy bolt of light? They were probably trying to signal the Fire Navy." he leveled his spear towards the boy, though he became unsure about where he was supposed to point it when he noticed that the girl was sliding down the animal's side, bundle still in her arms.

Sighing, Katara shoved the spear out of the way.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure they're spies for the Fire Navy," she commented sarcastically. "You can tell from the evil looks in their eyes."

The boy gave them a wide-eyed innocent smile that showed each and every one of his pearly white teeth even as the girl was wrapping what looked to be a thick woolen robe over his shoulders and fastening it down his front, making sure to thread his arms through the sleeves and pulling the hood over his bald head.

On closer inspection, Katara could tell the cloak the other girl was wearing was made of hand-woven wool, braided instead of woven into cloth. A cloak worn over an identical robe to the one she was putting on the boy, if larger.

Smiling back at the boy as the girl was shoving his hands into a pair of thick gloves, Katara shoved her brother aside.

"The paranoid one is my brother, Sokka," she said, gesturing towards the young man in question. "You never told us your name." she gave the boy a meaningful look, glancing towards the girl who was now in the process of unfolding a cloak of the same make as her own.

"I'm A..." he didn't get further than that, although he did try through each deep inhale before it all exploded into a violent sneeze.

A sneeze that sent the small boy flying straight up into the air.

The Water-tribe siblings stared up at the flying figure in absolute, horrified shock. The girl didn't look faced at all, simply brushing off the powdered snow that had gotten onto the cloak from the blast.

A short while later, the boy landed. Smoothly, on his feet, sliding down the ice-wall as though he hadn't just fallen from a height the water-tribe siblings knew would have quite a few injuries, if not life-threatening depending on how you fell.

"I'm Aang." the boy responded to Katara's earlier question, allowing the girl to drape the cloak over his shoulders as he sniffled, rubbing at his nose. "And this is Talla." he motioned towards the girl, batting her hands away when she moved to further adjust the cloak.

The girl, to her credit, only gave the kid a light smirk, stepping away from him.

Sokka was the first to shake himself out of his stupor.

"You just sneezed..." he breathed. "And flew ten feet in the air."

"Really?" Aang asked, peering up at where he'd flown. "It felt higher than that."

Talla gave him a good-natured wack at the back of his head for his comment, something he quietly grumbled about.

Katara broke out of her stupor with a loud gasp.

"You're an Airbender!"

"Sure am." Aang nodded, allowing Talla to wrap an arm around his shoulder, most likely to warm up even more. Cloak or no cloak, they were still on the South Pole, what they were wearing wouldn't do much to stave of the worst of the chill. "Me and Talla both." he gave the older girl such an affectionate smile that Katara couldn't help but ask.

"Are you two siblings?"

For a few moments, the two airbenders just stared at Katara, before Talla decided to speak up.

"In a sense," she said softly, her voice a light bell-like soprano that chimed through the air in a very attractive way. "I certainly do view him as a little brother though." she smiled prettily, running a hand over the now layered hood covering the head pressed into her chest.

"And I view her as a big sister." Aang agreed with an energetic nod.

Katara found herself smiling at the two, wishing that she and her own brother could be that close.

Said brother, had had enough.

"Giant light beams..." he muttered under his breath. "Flying bison… airbenders… I think I've got Midnight Sun Madness." he turned around, walking towards the end of the iceberg, the others following him with their eyes as he went. "I'm going back home to where stuff makes sense." he waved a hand in the air, only to be stopped short when he looked over at the waters surrounding them.

There was nothing but water for miles. No smaller icebergs that he could just jump onto and paddle his way back to the mainland.

Talla awkwardly cleared her throat, making Sokka turn around towards her.

"If you two are stuck, then maybe we could offer you a lift?" she asked sweetly, moving her hands onto Aang's shoulders. "Seeing as you are the ones who got us out in the first place, it would be the least we could do."

Aang's eyes lit up with excitement.

"Great idea!" he giggled, spinning around in a circle, creating a small tornado of wind that gracefully carried him up to the top of Appa's head, readily grabbing a string of rope tied to each of the bison's horns.

"We'd love a ride!" Katara called out, clasping Talla's hands in gratitude. "Thank you!" she left the other girl's side to move towards the bison.

"Oh, no..." Sokka exclaimed, moving away from the edge of the iceberg as he violently pointed towards the creature. "I am not getting on that fluffy snot monster..." he paused for a moment as he realized just how close to Talla he'd gotten, allowing him to see her pale, rosy cheeks speckled with freckles and strands of hair in a shade similar to that sweet his father had brought home from one of his travels that one time.

Milk chocolate, he thought the name was.

He violently shook his head as he realized how his eyes were getting caught in her bright moon-gray eyes and lingering on her pink lips for FAR too long.

He may be suspicious of her… but that did not mean that she was not an attractive suspicious person.

The worst kind…

Katara's voice brought him out of his irritated musings.

"Are you hoping some other kind of monster will come along and give you a ride home?" Aang gave the dark-skinned girl a hand up into the saddle, allowing her to feel the cushioned floor and just how comfortable it was to sit on it. "You know..." she looked down at her brother who had yet to take his eyes away from Talla's face. "Before you freeze to death."

Sokka opened his mouth, turning his head towards his sister only for her words to finally register into his head.

Like it or not, these two suspicious people WERE in the possession of a large creature that the two of them looked confident could swim. And seeing as the two of them would be on said creature with them, the likelihood of him and his sister meeting an icy death on top of the creature's back seemed highly unlikely. He looked back to the girl, she was a good half a head shorter than he was, and she was blinking up at him with those impossibly long eyelashes and…

He let out a long sigh of frustration.

"Fine..." he stalked over to where he'd discarded what little possessions he and his sister had brought, heaving everything into his arms as best he could.

"Do you need any help with that?" the girl asked from behind him, her hands folded in front of her, her back straight. A once-over told Sokka that she could do with some proper winter shoes before she froze her toes off.

He contemplated for a moment before sighing again, shoving the urn towards her.

"Here," he muttered, turning away from her again as he stalked over to the creature, throwing the things up to his sister who skillfully caught them before he heaved himself up the creature's side. By the time he was sitting in the saddle, the girl was softly landing on the other side, controlled winds leaving her fluttering clothes before she carefully settled the urn among the carefully strapped down bags. She motioned for Sokka to do the same before she somehow got him to help her pull a tarp over the entire thing, allowing him to watch exactly how she carefully knotted it in place.

Though… not before she pulled out what looked to be a pair of sleeping bags and two really thick, fluffy blankets.

Sokka raised an eyebrow at the sight of the things.

"What are those for?" he asked slowly.

The girl paused for a moment, before a soft blush spread from her neck up, staining her cheeks.

"I can already feel my toes going numb," she answered softly, handing one of the sleeping bags over to Aang, who was still sitting on the creature's head. "I packed clothes for winter, not South Pole weather." she made sure that Aang had crawled into his own back and wrapped the thick blanket around his shoulders before she returned to the back of the saddle all the while rolling out her own sleeping bag. "This will have to do for now."

Sokka watched Talla as she crawled into the sleeping bag, how she almost sagged with relief at the warmth that enveloped her legs before she made quick work to wrap the blanket around her own shoulders.

Sokka looked over to Katara, who looked at the two air siblings with worried eyes.

No doubt, his sister will run off to find some spare clothes for the two as soon as they reach the village.

Sokka sighed, shaking his head.

Suspicious or not, the two had not actually done anything to either him or his sister as of yet, had, in fact, helped them. So… for a while at least, Sokka could bring himself to return the favor.

Moving over to the girl, Sokka wrapped an arm around her as he maneuvered her to lay against his chest.

"W-wha-?" she spluttered, visibly blushing as the other two on the creature turned around to look at just what was going on, the kid's eyes widening dramatically.

"Deal with it," Sokka grumbled, grabbing hold of her flailing hands. Gloves or no gloves, her fingers must be feeling quite like her toes at the moment. "The kid's actually going to be doing things with his hands so he should be fine." he enveloped her tiny hands in his big ones, giving them as much head as he could manage. "You, on the other hand, will have to deal with body heat until we return to the village."

Talla blinked up at him for a couple of seconds before she gulped.

"You do realize that I am quite unaccustomed to the touch from a male my own age, right?" she asked slowly.

Sokka raised an eyebrow at her.

What was with the formal style of speech?

"Again..." he told her. "Deal with it." he pulled her closer to him. Well, as close as he could. "What kind of blanket is this anyway?" he asked, trying to move the thing away from his face. "It's so thick…."

"Air Nomads don't wear furs or leathers." the girl explained, shifting slightly in his arms. "So we make do with what we have."

Sokka looked at the side of her face.

"Which is?"

"Wools, cotton, linens…" she trailed off a bit but quickly continued speaking. "Any kind of material that can be constructed without having to kill a living creature," she explained, tilting her head up slightly to meet his face.

A people that refused to kill animals…

Did that mean they didn't eat meat?

If they didn't… there was no way in hell they were going to survive on the poles, they didn't have that many meat-free dishes and the ones they did have were seasonal.

He shook his head, deciding to ask something else entirely.

"Cotton and linen?" the words sounded strange in his ears.

"They're made off of plants." Talla quickly explained, slowly getting over the sensation of Sokka holding her.

"Ah..." Sokka nodded in understanding. Of course, he hadn't heard of it then. He turned his attention back towards the blanket. "So this blanket is..." he gave her a meaningful glance.

"Two pieces of linen sewn together and stuffed with combed wool for warmth." came her ready answer.

He wasn't going to lie, Sokka did feel some weight lift off of him at just how ready Talla was to answer his questions, even if they weren't that personal. It didn't tell him if she was an honest person or not, but at least she was comfortable answering questions.

"Okay!" Aang called from in front of them, having apparently finally gotten comfortable enough up there to finally take off. "First-time flyers, hold on tight!" he called over his shoulders before raising his hands holding the reins, giving them a shake. "Appa, yip yip!"

Appa made a low rumbling sound, slowly getting up onto his hairy legs. He lifted his huge beaver-like tail before slamming it down as he jumped into the air, the momentum from his tail launching him further through the air than the Water-tribe siblings would have thought such a large creature would be capable of, sure, but the glide through the air didn't last for long. Appa's legs spread out wide as he gently slid into the water with a foreseeably large splash before he began swimming forward.

Aang pouted in disappointment.

"Come on, Appa. Yip yip." he almost whined, shaking the reigns again.

"Wow..." Sokka deadpanned, leaning back against the tarp, tightening his arms around Talla in a subconscious desire to cross his arms over his chest. "That was truly amazing."

Aang just smiled, stroking a hand over Appa's furry head before calling back to the people on the saddle.

"Appa's just tired. A little rest and he'll be roaring through the sky. You'll see." he said, motioning with his hand through the air above his head as Katara leaned over the front of the saddle to look down on him. He gave her a wide smile when he spotted her.

And he kept on smiling for a good few seconds.

"Why are you smiling at me like that?" she asked awkwardly, moving away from the saddle's border a little.

"Oh..." Aang's smile fell as he looked away from her. "I was smiling?"

Katara raised an eyebrow at the kid's behavior, not understanding it at all.

Sokka though… he understood it all too well, and he let out a loud noise of disgust at the obvious crush the kid had already developed towards his little sister.

Appa just flopped his tail in the water, continuing to swim.

* * *

The sun was setting over the icy landscape as the ice cutter puffed over the water.

Prince Zuko stood on the deck, a heavy fur robe draped over his shoulders as his ponytail fluttered in the wind, his narrowed eyes scanning the icebergs they passed by, hoping to find the tiniest glimpse of his goal.

"I'm going to bed now." his uncle suddenly spoke up from behind him, stretching out his arms in an exaggerated yawn. His nephew did not even flinch. "Yep." the elder man continued, scratching at the sash covering his belly. "A man needs his rest." again, there was no reaction from the prince.

Sighing, the elder man walked up to where his nephew was standing. "Prince Zuko, you need some sleep." he insisted, a note of worry in his voice. "Even if you're right and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him. Your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather all tried and failed before you."

It was a story he had said many a time before, he should have known it would not work this time as well.

"That's because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture." his eyes narrowed even more if that was possible. "Mine does." he threw a look towards his uncle. "This coward's hundred years in hiding are over."

His uncle only sighed at his words.

* * *

The sun had long since set and Appa was still swimming through the icy waters. Sokka had fallen asleep curled up with Talla's 'Duvet' as she called it wrapped around both of their sleeping forms but both Katara and Aang were still very much awake.

Katara crawled from the semi-thick blanket Talla had lent her and up to the front of the saddle to look down at where Aang had leaned back against the back of Appa's neck, staring up at the star speckled sky.

"Hey," she spoke up, calling attention to herself.

"Hey." Aang echoed back, meeting her eyes. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

This was something that had stuck Katara as a bit odd, where Talla always spoke properly, Aang had a tendency to speed through his sentences. But she suspected that just came down to age as Talla most likely had years of discipline under her belt.

"I guess I was wondering..." she trailed off, wondering just how to ask him this. "You being an airbender and all..." she took a deep breath and decided to just go for it. "If you had any idea what happened to the Avatar."

Aang immediately averted his eyes.

"Uhh… no," he answered slowly. "I didn't know him…" he sat up, readjusting the duvet around his shoulders. "I mean… I knew people that knew him, but I didn't." he glanced at Katara from over his shoulder apologetically. "Sorry."

Katara tried to stifle the disappointment she felt at his words, giving him a small smile.

"Okay..." she nodded slowly. "Just curious." she sighed heavily. "Goodnight."

And with that said, she crawled back to where she'd been lying down, throwing one glance at where her brother was snuggling up to Talla, who looked as though she hadn't moved an inch.

"Sleep tight!" Aang called after her.

On the other side of the saddle, Aang bit his lip, a look of clear fear on his face.

* * *

**A/N: This bitch has been a work in progress for several months now, I don't even know exactly when I started but I know it was somewhere at the start of summer, or even before that.**

**I'm gonna have to ask you, people, what you think of the first chapter at this point, this is already one of the longest chapters I have ever written so I am not going to finish the whole first episode as a first chapter, that would take WAY too long and BE way too long. I am actually quite happy with how it turned out.**

**Please tell me what you think, I know it's not much but please tell me what you think about Talla, I'm quite proud of her and excited to keep writing with her in the group. I've tried to find a fanfiction out there where Aang wasn't alone in the iceberg for a long while and I cannot recall if I ever found one, but if I did… obviously it didn't fit with the kind of story I wanted to read.**

**Again, please tell me what you think, I have ZERO self-motivational abilities so any motivation to keep writing needs to come from the outside, lest my interest moves on and who knows when I'll continue writing then.**

**Worst case scenario would be like one of my other fanfics that I didn't update for two fucking years.**

**This is me… threatening for reviews…**

**How long have I sunk?**

**Also… please don't comment on my grammar or spelling, I am well aware that that is a problem I have and I will deal with it in due time, probably after the fic is finished most likely when I don't have to worry about actually writing the chapter before anything else. THEN I can worry about going through it all and correcting such errors.**

**Thank you for reading.**

**Love ya loads.**

**Helena.**


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